Individuality Quotes - Page 2

How can we “find ourselves” again? How can man “know himself”? He is a thing obscure and veiled. If the hare has seven skins, man can cast from him seventy times seven skins, and not be able to say: “Here you truly are; there is skin no more.”Also this digging into oneself, this straight, violent descent into the pit of one’s being, is a troublesome and dangerous business to start. You may easily take such hurt, that no doctor can heal you. And what is the point: since everything bears witness to our essence — our friendships and enmities, our looks and greetings, our memories and forgetfulnesses, our books and our writing!

Being an American is about having the right to be who you are. Sometimes that doesn't happen.

I cannot say this too strongly: Do not compare yourselves to others. Be true to who you are, and continue to learn with all your might.

People worried about our passing over into some robotic state, but we were so much like robots already, programmed and easy to manipulate.

If we are cultivating fruit in an orchard, we wish that particular fruit to grow in its own way; we give it the soil it needs, the amount of moisture, the amount of care, but we do not treat the apple tree as we would the pear tree or the peach tree as we would the vineyard on the hillside. Each is allowed the freedom of its own kind and the result is the perfection of growth which can be accomplished in no other way. The time must come when the same freedom is allowed the individual; each in his own way must develop according to nature's purpose, the body must be but the channel for the expression of purpose, interest, emotion, labor. Everywhere freedom must be the sign of reason.

Be batty, be traditional, and be proud.

Individuals with greed for power see others as elements to be oppressed.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

No matter what happens, no matter who turns on me, no matter what pompous swine thinks he has power over me, I am still me. I will always be me.

Who cares about fault? As my dad would say, ‘Blame is like your rear-end and reflection. Seeing either always leaves you looking back.’ I’m more worried about what’s in front of me. And right now . . . the view is all messed up.” ~ Ellia

For instance, the scientific article may say, 'The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one- half in a period of two weeks.' Now what does that mean?It means that phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat—and also in mine, and yours—is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday.

This is the age of the individual and there is no reason to believe that this focus of mankind is likely to change in the foreseeable future. Hence, the mission is to put individualism inside a wide context and to give it meaning and a sense of direction; to empower it – but authentically this time.

If only you would go to the university," he said. "Only enlightened and holy people are interesting, it's only they who are wanted. The more of such people there are, the sooner the Kingdom of God will come on earth. Of your town then not one stone will be left, everything will he blown up from the foundations, everything will be changed as though by magic. And then there will be immense, magnificent houses here, wonderful gardens, marvellous fountains, remarkable people.... But that's not what matters most. What matters most is that the crowd, in our sense of the word, in the sense in which it exists now -- that evil will not exist then, because every man will believe and every man will know what he is living for and no one will seek moral support in the crowd. Dear Nadya, darling girl, go away! Show them all that you are sick of this stagnant, grey, sinful life. Prove it to yourself at least!

It's normal to dream about anything at all. It's not normal to dream someone else's dreams." -Arthur Mentis

Style is when they're running you out of town and you make it look like you're leading the parade.

Create history and write your own.

Be yourself because an original is always worth more than a copy.

Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

The point is that you are an individual inasmuch as you exist in a social matrix of others who respect your individuality and your right to make choices. That's concrete individuality: an individuality that it owes its existence to a kind of communal respect on the part of all the other individualities, and that it had better therefore respect them similarly.

But every time I go to church with you, I feel like everyone's trying to trap me in a room and convert me.' Which, in truth, they are. 'I want you, and your family, to love me for who I am,' he shouts, 'To let me be who I am.

Given that the Taliban is a Pashtun movement, the tendency of the Pashtun man to emphasize his individuality through disagreement rather than agreement will come to the fore after the disappearance of the already 'loose' authority of Mullah Omar.

It’s better to be individual than a clone of someone else.

I think, therefore I am an individual... not a drone in a collective. I think, therefore I am... Libertarian.

We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

I was thinking, and realised how simple my goal has been— just to be me! I didn't want to be a good person and change the world; I just wanted to be me! Against all odds, I wanted to make sure that I turned out as myself and not into my family, my society, my religion... I wanted to make sure that I turned into me! But then after that first realisation, I made a second realisation; and that is, that becoming yourself against all odds is probably the highest attainment you could ever dream of or hope for! After all, the minute we are born, we are born into a world that isn't interested in making us who we are; but rather, is interested in making us who they think we are supposed to be! It is a most courageous act to become yourself, no matter what! And you can move mountains and change the world without trying to! As long as you fight for you!

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.

But true individuality is more about being in tune with who you truly are, whether you're expressing yourself physically, mentally, or spiritually; individuality arises from living without fear of what other might think or say about you and without being swayed by their opinions, leaving you free to lead life without caring about judgments made by the outside world.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, think your own thoughts, say what you must say, do what you must do, love all that you can and stand on your own two feet.

I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable.

In a crowd do not lose your individuality, and in your individuality do not lose the crowd.

It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.

The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.

The thing that matters most is what matters to you, not anybody else.

There are two kinds of people. One kind, you can just tell by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves. It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more suprises from it. Whereas, the other kind keep moving, changing... They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive. You must be constantly on your guard against congealing.

Every heart must have its privatebestseller book.

your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.

A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.

There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things. In other words, there is no thinker behind the thought. Thought itself is the thinker. If you remove the thought, there is no thinker to be found.

We need some controversy every now and then. Without it, we would never know where we stand as individuals: with the crowd or by yourself.

Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss...." He turned to me. "But every once in a while, you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.

Here is the paradox of it: the more of an individual you become the more you realize we are interrelated, that success of one requires the success of all.

What did the Romans say? “De gustibus non est disputandum”: It is worthless to discuss personal taste. It is called 'personal' for a reason.

When your life gets to the stage of being mindful and concerned with impacting and blessing lives, then you are pursuing wholeness as an individual.

No kind of social system can make you more happier and secure than your own money.

when you're a poetyou can dish out whatever'son your mind and you don't have toapologize for it

Assumptions are quick exits for lazy minds that like to graze out in the fields without bother.

In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "woman is a divine creature," we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that "a woman is as good as a man," without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape attention altogether, viz: (...) that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.

Only he qualifies to be an INDIVIDUAL, who has created an IMAGE for himself, in tune with his INTRINSIC NATURE, for majority only succumb to the human stupidity and perish!

Adele doesn't need any ironic detachment. She can love and appreciate the talent of others without feeling threatened herself. This is often very hard for people. We usually worry that someone else's talent or success is being compared with our own so we take the role of a critic and evaluate people harshly in order to protect our own egos.People like Adele focus on what they like and they ignore the comparisons. Plus, they let the people around them know when they found something that they love about their work or their art.

To the untrained eye, Ben had nothing, at least by the bizarre rules that governed high school. But really, Ben was one of the few who wasn't pretending, one of the few who was free.

If you want to be a big success then it becomes a dick showing contest, and that's not what it's about. It can't be about 'My book sold more copies than your book.' It can't be about 'More people went to see my movie than went to see your movie.' If it is about that, then Danielle Steel must be an extraordinarily wonderful author because she sells so many copies. You can't do calculations that way.What interests me is holding the vision: doing something that is yours and making sure that it can't be like anyone else's.

Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things.

I would like to have nothing to do with you for hours on end and then come back and find you, come back with things I’ve thought and found all on my own— on my own, not through you.

My mother finally took me to a child psychologist, who knew exactly what I was, but she just couldn’t accept it and kept trying to tell my folks I was reading their body language and was very observant, so I had good reason to imagine I heard people’s thoughts. Of course, she couldn’t admit I was literally hearing people’s thoughts because that just didn’t fit into her world.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Life can be generous, but leaves us with a trilemma: How can we reconcile three diverse features: ‘I’, 'me' and the 'others'. Since the “I” entails what I want; the “me” what others expect of me and the “others” what others themselves want. The bridges between "individuality", “surroundings” and "otherness" can be abysmal and very often waiting to be restored. (“I am on my own side, but I can listen “ )